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THE GREAT FIVE 

Cl^e f trjst ifacultt of ti^e €)]^to 

BY ISAAC CROOK 




Ctnttnnatt 

JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



JQeto porii 

EATON AND MAINS 




ffa« L J f 2. i 2. 

Book_^ 

Copyright}]^- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE GREAT FIVE 



THE GREAT FIVE 

Ci^e ^im !ffacultt of ti^e flDi^to 

BY ISAAC CROOK 




Ctntinnati 

JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 

Beta porii 

EATON AND MAINS 









Copyright, 1908, 
By Jennings and Graham 



^tbknitb ixt «'525'' 



Besides personal reminiscences of many Alumni 
and the ''Fiftieth Year Book*' of the Uni- 
versity, I am greatly indebted to 
Prof S. W. Williams, 
long-time Book Editor of the 
Western Methodist 
Book Concern. 



^^ MOTIVE '' 

The Board of Trustees of the Ohio 
Wesleyan University at its last session '^ex- 
pressed very great satisfaction for services 
rendered in collating this valuable infor- 
mation, and requested its publication." 

The Pittsburg Advocate said: **The 
lecture delivered at the Ohio Wesleyan 
University, Delaware, on April i6th, by 
Dr. Isaac Crook, was unique. The theme 
was the Great Five who created that Uni- 
versity: Thomson, Merrick, Harris, Mc- 
Cabe, and Williams. It was more than 
a biography, being reminiscent, historical, 
and educationally wide in scope. There is 
no other lecture of the kind covering the 
same ground, and can be none. It is 
adapted for general lecture, and is likely 
to be so used. It will go Into the Univer- 
sity archives, and would make a fine book- 
let" 



The Great Five 

I. The first Faculty of the Ohio Wes- 
leyan University, especially the Great Five, 
resembles a brilliant star of five points: 
Thomson, Merrick, Harris, McCabe, and 
Williams. These, above all others, were 
the makers of the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity. Other men shared in its creation. 
Enterprising, generous citizens of Dela- 
ware invited the location and encouraged it 
by liberal donations. Leaders of the Ohio 
and the North Ohio Conference Investi- 
gated, contributed, and pleaded for the 
founding of a University on the campus, 
foreordained by the creation of the sulphur 
spring. I could quote the burning words 
and generous deeds of those leaders. 
11 



THE GREAT FIVE 

Five men constituted a small Faculty to 
man the work of a first-class institution of 
learning. But five loaves were made suffi- 
cient by divine intervention for five thou- 
sand men, besides women and children. In 
this case there were added at least two 
small fishes financially. Garfield's Faculty, 
consisting of Mark Hopkins on one end of 
the log, and himself on the other as stu- 
dent, was all the teaching force he would 
care for, may be trite, but suggests an im- 
portant factor. 

To found and give character to an in- 
stitution of learning like this resembles the 
planting of a banyan tree. The thrifty 
stock throws out its branches, and they, 
dropping to the ground, plant another 
and another, until such trees can shel- 
ter as many as seven thousand men. The 
Ohio Wesleyan University has reproduced 
its like in this country and in the Orient 
in cases too numerous to mention, while 
its sons and daughters are at work in the 
12 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

world under every sky. Those who have 
misrepresented and dishonored this Alma 
Mater are so few as to be well-nigh for- 
gotten. 

II. To attempt a description of that 
great first Faculty is something like at- 
tempting a lecture on the departments of 
a modern University. How could one 
speak on literature, philosophy, mathe- 
matics, mechanics, athletics, and all beside, 
wooing included, within the limits of an 
hour? My purpose is to let you off be- 
fore sunrise to-morrow morning. 

In this address we must not forget that 
Dr. Herman M. Johnson olfficially grad- 
uated the forerunner of the Alumni of this 
institution. In 1845, Professor Johnson 
on Commencement Day stepped to the 
platform, having put on a hat, but no 
gown. Jared O. Church, whom he had 
taught In Augusta College, Ky., sat before 
him. In the presence of the trustees. Dr. 
Johnson said, "Surge, Domine Church." 
13 



THE GREAT FIVE 

Mr. Church, either not comprehending or 
not promptly obeying, the Professor spoke 
in a lower tone, ''Stand up, Mr. Church," 
and when he rose to his feet. Professor 
Johnson went on: "Auctoritate mihi data," 
etc. As soon as the degree was conferred, 
the Professor presented him a scroll, sup- 
posed to be his diploma, and took off his 
hat, making a slight bow; for the candi- 
date having been thus admitted to college 
honors was to be henceforth treated no 
longer as a pupil, but as an equal. Dr. 
Johnson proved himself a great educator 
here for six years, and then for eighteen 
years Professor and President of Dickin- 
son College. 

Solomon Howard, like his namesake 
Solomon for wisdom, unlike him being 
a better man — spent two years here con- 
ducting a preparatory school, one of the 
rootlets of the coming University; then as 
Professor of Mathematics in the prelimi- 
nary Faculty of Four for one year. His^ 
14 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

place afterward in the line of Ohio Uni- 
versity Presidents for twenty years was 
overshadowed by none in that line. 

I recall a sermon preached by him at a 
session of the Ohio Conference on the text, 
**A11 things are yours," which he called **an 
inventory of the Christian's estate." He 
spoke truth then never to be forgotten, as 
he had once before in speaking about a 
young lady teacher of his son. The boy 
was afterwards drowned In the Hocking 
River. ''That girl," said Dr. Howard, 
"is worth her weight in gold." I have 
never had occasion to doubt this assertion 
concerning my future wife. 

III. In portraying that great Faculty 
or Five It Is not done to belittle their suc- 
cessors. He whose face Is turned over 
his shoulder to the past Is not fit to ad- 
vance. ''Why were the former days bet- 
ter than these?" Is not a wise inquiry. The 
present Faculty and this throng of stu- 
dents show that the stream has gained in 
15 



THE GREAT FIVE 

force as well as width. The Alumni are 
proud of their mother. I confess that I 
felt homesick when she celebrated her 
fiftieth anniversary. I could not attend, 
for I was then struggling for the life of 
the Nebraska Wesleyan University as its 
Chancellor, and succeeded in preventing 
an absolute wreck. But not a word from 
mother, though I, my wife, all our chil- 
dren, and others whom we adopted, grad- 
uated here. When the Alumni decided to 
propose the union of the Ohio Wesleyan 
and the Ohio Wesleyan Female College, 
I had the honor of carrying the marriage 
proposal to the trustees. I do not expect 
to ever regret the mission, though it was 
received coldly by the President of the 
Board then acting. 



16 



I. 

There are composite pictures, including 
the best qualities of a number of individ- 
uals. It might be comical, and even ma- 
lignant, to select only the worst features 
in combination. 

With a feeling of inadequacy, I attempt 
the former, the composite. The younger 
among you would be tempted to doubt my 
portrait should I succeed in doing it jus- 
tice. Those who knew the men are liable 
to feel that I have fallen short, and no 
doubt in memory call up as striking phases 
of character and illustrative incidents. 

I. The five had good ancestry. 

(i) President Thomson was English, 
born at Portsea. The line ran back 
through such ancestry as the poet Thom- 
son into Scotland, whence broke upon the 
world *'the brainiest of the human race." 
2 17 



THE GREAT FIVE 

(2) Harris could have been a Scotch- 
man, as himself would put it, ''if he had 
been a mind to." Possibly, like the great 
Welsh Harris, he may have had Cambrian 
blood. But he was born near Mansfield, 
Ohio—a very good man's field, if I may 
venture a pun. (The students of the Uni- 
versity of the Pacific had a law for punish- 
ing a punster. The guilty one was caught 
by his chums and stood upon his head; 
there is no danger to me personally in this 
presence.) 

(3) Merrick was Puritan, New Eng- 
land born, in Massachusetts. We are 
never certain what strains of blood make 
up the Puritan, but he will do to rely 
upon. 

(4) In McCabe, the Mc points back 
to Erin; but he was born at Marietta, the 
birthplace of Ohio. His ancestors were 
Scotch-Irish. 

(5) Williams was Welsh by at least 
seven generations back, when the family 

18 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

left Wales and settled In North Ireland. 
There the Professor's grandfather, Wil- 
liam Williams, was born. Tradition In 
Chilllcothe yet recalls the Irish brogue or- 
namenting his elegant English. I have 
often stood before the birthplace of Wil- 
liam G. Williams, on High Street, Chilll- 
cothe. Had It been the birthplace of QEdl- 
pus It could scarcely have appealed to me 
as It did, because he was born there who 
conducted us through his masterly teach- 
ing to the mountain where Prometheus 
was bound. 

Thus we see, three of the Five were 
born in Ohio, while the other two took on 
the stamp of Buckeye character. 

2. Their personal appearance may In- 
terest us. 

(i) The President was petite in form, 
never weighing over a hundred and twenty- 
five pounds, erect and elegant In his car- 
riage, with great, searching gray eyes that 
seemed to look one through, and when de- 
19 



THE GREAT FIVE 

livering his sublime lectures his smallness 
of stature was forgotten in the presence of 
his gigantic spirit. 

(2) Harris was the largest of the Five, 
weighing two hundred pounds or more — 
vigorous, leonine, dark-haired, dark-eyed, 
commanding in his appearance. 

(3) As far back as I remember, Mc- 
Cabe's hair was white, his face luminous, 
his frame not large, but elegant. When 
acting as President, Delaware *Vent dry.'' 
The chapel hour was prolonged; students 
made speeches; pledging went on. Pro- 
fessor Merrick came in and announced that 
the last saloon had closed its doors. 
McCabe's handkerchief swung round his 
white head as he shouted in the language 
of Henry of Navarre, ''Follow where this 
white plume leads." 

(4) Merrick, of medium size, more 
angular than any, with great, serious, dark 
eyes, wherein kindled a kindly light, his 
very person suggesting that he was living 

20 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

midway between two worlds. When he 
was too feeble to come to chapel without 
a crutch, his appearance evoked from a 
young man under discipline the remark, 
**If ever there was a saint on earth, there 
he is/' 

(5) Williams, not the largest nor the 
least of the Five, broad-shouldered, quick 
of motion, gray-eyed, smiling face, in every 
lineament gentleman, Christian, scholar, 
teacher. 

Not one of them was as ugly as Lincoln, 
or Tolstoy, or Socrates. Not a whiff of 
tobacco about them. 

3. Their scholarship was up to the op- 
portunity of the times, and, judged by re- 
sults, adequate to the making of an insti- 
tution of learning. 

(j) Thomson being brought to this 
country at the age of seven, acquired some- 
how at Wooster a fine acquaintance with 
academic literature. He afterward grad- 
uated in the medical department of the 
21 



THE GREAT FIVE 

University of Pennsylvania at the age of 
nineteen. He was singularly gifted for 
acquainting himself with every realm of 
learning. His intellect was a great ab- 
sorbent. 

(2) Professor Merrick attended Wil- 
braham Academy, and afterwards com- 
pleted to near the end the curriculum of 
Wesleyan University, being called away to 
take charge of Amenia Seminary, and 
afterward was Professor at the Ohio Uni- 
versity for four years ; was one year pastor 
at Marietta, and thence called to Delaware, 
in 1844, to a big debt and an empty 
building. 

(3) McCabe was an Alumnus of the 
Ohio University at Athens, where he also 
taught for one year. In 1845 he was 
elected to the chair of Mathematics and 
Mechanical Philosophy in Ohio Wesleyan 
University. He was at his best afterward 
in Philosophy. 

(4) Professor Harris was a graduate 
f 22 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

of Norwalk Seminary, then one of the fore- 
most institutions west of the AUeghanies. 

(5) Professor Williams was a graduate 
of '*01d Woodward/' Cincinnati. 

Scholarly teachers, all of them. We 
know that an Institution of learning does 
not furnish brains nor industry; not so 
much what a man studies as how. In this 
these men were masters. To glance out- 
side, where were graduated Thomson of 
the Ohio State University and the late 
Harper of Chicago University? In a lit- 
tle college down by the Muskingum River, 
known as Muskingum College ; one monu- 
ment of the value of the small college. 

4. In this picture a few minor charac- 
teristics may hint at the majesty of the 
composite man. These men had humor. 
Alas for the one who has not! It can be 
overdone. There was a member of our 
Literary Society who so constantly raised 
the laugh that we began to think he was 
never In earnest. He faded out of sight. 
23 



THE GREAT FIVE 

Tom Corwin, that wizard of the stump and 
resistless orator, lamented at the last that 
he would be remembered only as the one 
who could make people laugh. Our first 
Faculty had sufficient humor; and ''what 
we have felt and seen, with confidence we 
tell." 

(i) When reciting logic on one occa- 
sion, I gave a syllogism involving a double 
negative. Thomson reminded me of the 
young lady who ran from a proposal, ex- 
claiming, ''No, no!'' Afterward, when 
the fellow complained that she had refused 
him, she blandly reminded him. that a 
double negative was equivalent to an af- 
firmative. That lesson in logic stuck. 

(2) Professor Harris was seated on 
platform during a lecture of the Rev. Dr. 
Barrows, of New England. Granville 
Moody had been asked to make the closing 
prayer; he sat smiling during the lecture. 
The smile was contagious. "Why do you 
laugh?" whispered Harris. "I 'm going 
24 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

to tell Father on that man," said Moody; 
and he did, for he prayed for twenty min- 
utes, traversing the whole lecture in contra- 
diction. Dr. Barrows had made a plea for 
theological schools in Methodism. To 
cap the climax, our Society met next morn- 
ing and passed resolutions thanking and 
indorsing Dr. Barrows, but repudiating the 
prayer. On another occasion a student was 
brightly converted at the altar in William 
Street Church. Professor Harris broke 
into a hearty laugh, out of sincere enjoy- 
ment of the spectacle. His way of joining 
the angels in heaven. 

(3) Even serious-minded Merrick 
would say to a tobacco-user, *'Name your 
price for quitting, and I will pay It." On 
the platform at chapel he feigned to have 
been confused by what, he said, looked like 
the smoke of a locomotive coming down 
William Street; when, lo, as it came near, 
it was a student behind his tobacco pipe. 
Under such ridicule my room-mate threw 
25 



THE GREAT FIVE 

away his tobacco forever. When in Italy, 
he met Mark Twain, who said he was look- 
ing for Adam's grave. The Professor was 
too shrewd to be ranked as an 'Tnnocent 
Abroad." 

(4) McCabe bubbled the oftener be- 
cause his fathers came from Erin. There 
went out a request from one of the Presi- 
dents (not Thomson) that the students 
should inform on each other. One day in 
class, Professor McCabe mildly declared it 
was right to obey the President's request; 
then, bringing down his fist on the desk, 
said, in thunderous tones, 'Xet me catch 
any of you telling on the others, and I '11 
give you a piece of my mind." To an 
objection against his doctrine of foreknowl- 
edge he replied, 'T would answer if it did 
not wrench me so to kick at nothing." 

( 5 ) Professor Williams, of whom some 
student said he had invented Greek, saw 
amusing things mostly in literary matters. 

26 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

He was illustrating excessive condensation 
of style, and quoted the man who prayed 
to be forgiven for sins '*both of o- and 
row-mission." 

These minor peculiarities may serve as 
the scintillations of electric light that flash 
around a great mountain, giving the be- 
holder hints of its majesty. 

5. All these men began poor in purse, 
and mostly remained so from loyalty to the 
institution. Thomson had been offered 
the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy 
in the University of Michigan; one writer 
says it was the Presidency. Williams was 
invited to a chair in the Ohio State Uni- 
versity at a much larger salary than was 
paid him by the Ohio Wesleyan. In fact, 
all were prompted by their devotion to 
their call rather than by pay. 

(i) Have we not in our denomina- 
tional institutions presumed too far on this 
religious generosity, and so lost some of 
27 



THE GREAT FIVE 

the finest teachers trained in our colleges? 
Yet this law of service Is at the foundation 
of Christianity. 

We have not yet come to that plea, 'Tut 
me into one of the priest's offices that I 
may eat a piece of bread." 

(2) This began as a poor man's col- 
lege for students also. One case may il- 
lustrate. A farmer and his wife raised 
small crops on a poor farm to send their 
boy to college. Commencement Day came ; 
he met them at the train, escorted them 
through the town to the President's office, 
and seemed proud to introduce them as 
'Tather" and ^'Mother." (Some of us 
saw President Thomson as proud of his 
mother leaning on his arm about these 
streets.) Commencement Day came; the 
boy graduated; the venerable father turned 
to his wife and said, ^'Mother, this is the 
best crap we ever raised." I knew one 
fellow live for a whole week on ten cents. 
With that he bought a peck of corn-meal, 
28 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

and had salt enough, with water thrown in. 
This cheapening may be overdone ; but the 
old Faculty set the pace for the poor man's 
son. Usually it is the fellow with a full 
pocket that causes trouble and falls out by 
the way; all the more credit to him when 
he overcomes the added obstacle of wealth. 
6. The original Faculty were all mirt' 
tsters of the gospel. With men of that 
profession began our American colleges. 

( 1 ) John Harvard, and men like him, 
originated the first college, with its faith 
declared in the motto, ^^Christus et Ec- 
clesia." 

( 2 ) Governor Yale furnished the name, 
while Bishop Berkeley and the clergy de- 
termined the fate of Yale College. ^'West- 
ward the Star of Empire took its way till 
it settled on Berkeley, California." Re- 
vivals* at Yale were frequent for many 
years, producing men like Horace Bush- 
nell, who modified the severity of New 
England theology. 

29 



THE GREAT FIVE 

(3) Williams College and its haystack 
prayer-meeting will never be forgotten. 
The successors of the apostles were divinely 
ordained to lead mankind, not only in re- 
ligion, but in literature, learning, and re- 
form. It was therefore but normal that 
our institutions of learning should have 
originated with them. There is a swing 
the other way, and a few laymen are found 
heading great institutions; but it is impos- 
sible for them to avoid the function of the 
pastor and preacher, though nominally lay- 
men. Such are Hadley of Yale, Wilson 
of Princeton, and Harris of the North- 
western. Such was Canfield in the State 
Universities of Nebraska and Ohio. 

(4) In that Faculty of the Ohio Wes- 
leyan there were preachers of the first 
order. The President I have not heard 
surpassed, and I remember in this state- 
ment hearing Spurgeon, Lyddon, Henry 
Ward Beecher, Dr. Plummer, Randolph 
S. Foster, Matthew Simpson, and John P. 

30 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

Durbin. Not one of them made me for- 
get which way to go to find the door of 
exit after the sermon was over. Thomson 
did that. Professor Williams did the least 
preaching of any man in the first Faculty, 
but it was the preaching of scholarly, ear- 
nest persuasiveness. 

7. This leads to another fact in the 
history of this University. Like other 
great denominational institutions, it is a 
child of prayer. 

( 1 ) When Princeton College was com- 
ing into existence as the 'Xog College" 
under the two saintly Tennents, in 1726, 
there was a prayer-meeting held by women 
in the adjoining room. 

(2) One hundred and eight years after- 
ward, in 1834, when the first Board of 
Trustees of Oberlin College, Ohio, was 
formulating its policy, including Abolition- 
ism and the admission of negro students, 
there was great hesitancy on account of the 
heated conflict presaging the Rebellion, and 

31 



THE GREAT FIVE 

the risk financially, as well as danger of 
mob violence. In the house of Rev. Mr. 
Shipherd (a returned missionary and pio- 
neer of Oberlin College) the trustees were 
in session, wrestling with the problem of a 
definite policy. In an adjoining room were 
three anxious women; two of them went 
apart to pray. Mrs. Shipherd easily over- 
heard the discussion and kept the suppliants 
informed. Finally, the vote on the policy 
was a tie. The President of the Board, 
Father Keep, cast the deciding vote affirm- 
atively. There began one of the noblest 
careers of any institution of learning. Out 
of that meeting came opportunity for the 
black race, heroic conscience, and revival- 
ism, with which the name of Finney stands 
connected forever. 

(3) More recently there was a contest 
between Chillicothe and Wooster over the 
location of a university. How much pray- 
ing was done I am not informed, but there 
was good Presbyterian fighting. Just be- 
32 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

low the site for the college on Carlisle 
Place, ChiUicothe, is a brewery. When at- 
tention was called to the fumes arising 
from that plant to the nostrils of the young 
people, the deciding vote sent the institu- 
tion to Wooster. 

(4) How, in this respect, about the 
Ohio Wesleyan? There was no doubt 
much praying at the beginning. After the 
Faculty of Five had come together. Presi- 
dent Thomson for a time relinquished his 
class-work and became a student pastor, 
visiting the young men in their rooms, to 
talk and pray with them. Immediately 
there was established a weekly prayer- 
meeting of the Faculty and a daily evening 
meeting for the students. This was 
speedily followed by the conversion of over 
eighty young men, nearly all the students in 
the college. That method of matriculating 
into the school of Christ has been as regu- 
lar as the opening of the college year and 
as ceaseless as the flow of the sulphur 
3 33 



THE GREAT FIVE 

spring. The River of the Water of Life 
from beneath the throne flows this way. 
Were there time I should like to recite the 
similar origin and early career of Kenyon 
College of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, and of Denison of the Baptist 
Church. Ohio was, in fact, pre-empted 
for collegiate learning by the Churches 
from the start. Hence here are more de- 
nominational institutions of learning and 
more men and women with college diplo- 
mas per capita than in any other State. 
Ohio has, in all, thirty-five colleges and 
universities. Even New York has not so 
many. A careless, scholastic, learned, skep- 
tical Faculty would have blighted it all. 
Herein is the main reason for maintaining 
the denominational institution of learning 
for the sake of the State University as 
well as ours. 

(5) As American citizens, we rejoice 
in our great public school system, affiliated 
naturally with the lavishly endowed State 
34 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

University. But let us have our young 
men and women during their under-grad- 
uate collegiate life in formative years, then 
let the State do its specializing work for 
them. I sometimes fear we are overdoing 
it with our limited means and divine calling 
by attempting to vie with them in this spe- 
cial work. 

The Curriculum. 

I. Let us not begin too soon to spe- 
cialize as a rule, nor press it to narrowness 
and bigotry. The first time I ever saw a 
razor-back hog was in Alabama in the 
woods. I could scarcely make out whether 
the creature was wolf, dog, or hog. On 
closer survey it seemed poised just above 
its fore-legs, its sharp spine and great snout 
at work rooting for its daily food. It 
looked as though it might upset forward, 
such had been its growth and that of its an- 
cestors through long generations. It had 
been specializing, and so was very narrow 
it saw neither forest nor heaven. 
35 



THE GREAT FIVE 

2. The curriculum has had a hard time. 
Chancellor McCracken, of New York 
University, suggested something like this: 
The head of Sir Curriculum was once filled 
to over- fullness with subjects of study. 
Then his body was stuffed out with multi- 
tudinous departments to great corpulency 
nigh unto bursting. Farther on, his arms 
and legs were drawn to great tenuity and 
length by specializing, until there has 
been risk of his being torn asunder. 

3. In later years there has been a ten- 
dency on the part of the State Universities 
to get together and dominate the curricu- 
lum, capture the public schools, secure fa- 
vorable legislation, vast endowments, and 
establish a great secular university in Wash- 
ington City. In so far as this has ignored 
the denominational school, it should put 
us on our mettle as well as good behavior. 
I am not sure that we greatly need the 
American University, but let it be endowed 
and equipped. Professor McCabe once 

36 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

said, **I would not send my son to a Ger- 
man University, even to stay over night." 
That was his emphasis on the sad outcome, 
many a time witnessed, of young Americans 
coming thence scientifically equipped, but 
with the eyes of their faith blinded. Lit- 
eral blindness were preferable to this. 

4. Doubtless the ancient classics drew 
too heavily for a long time on the atten- 
tion and talent of students. Then followed 
a breaking away into more practical and 
industrial education, largely inspired by 
ambition to quickly acquire definite scien- 
tific knowledge, but more frequently with a 
purpose to get rich quick. This policy is 
being pressed down into the common 
schools with disastrous results even to the 
little ones. This was an absolute necessity 
to the emancipated Negro under Booker T. 
Washington, but has gone too far in the 
education of whites, from primary school 
to university. Fortunately there is at this 
time a rising protest among educational 
37 



THE GREAT FIVE 

leaders, and a plea for mental training, 
primarily. 

The old Faculty of Five set the pace 
which can not be ignored, however much 
improved upon. 

5. Has not the function of the ideal 
College President also undergone a 
change ? The wider curriculum, the larger 
Faculty, and the financial pressure have 
forced the College President into attention 
to affairs financial and merely administra- 
tive. In fact, he must be five men in one ; 
one to the students, one to the Faculty, 
another to the public, another to the 
banker, and, sometimes hardest of all, one 
to the Board of Trustees. 

Was it so with Dwight, Wolsey, Burr, 
McCosh, Mark Hopkins, William H. 
McGuffey, and Wilbur Fisk (who had 
the wisdom to decline being made Bishop 
rather than College President), and, as he 
looks to us, the tallest pinnacle of them 
all, Edward Thomson? 
38 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

Must this type pass out, or should there 
not be relief from the quintuple drain on 
the University President of to-day? 

6. In addition to their intrinsic worth as 
a Faculty, these men were highly favored 
by long continuanfe. The trustees of the 
Ohio Wesleyan University have been en- 
dowed with extraordinary wisdom in this. 
There has been a disposition to trust the 
President and Faculty with management of 
the curriculum. Have I not seen the club 
raised annually over the heads of my 
choicest Professors ? A painful knowledge 
of this fact dampened their enthusiasm, 
kept them on the alert for another position, 
and destroyed their loyalty to the ungrate- 
ful institution itself. The Ohio Wesleyan 
Faculty has practically enjoyed a life 
tenure. 

( I ) Of the first five, Harris was called 

out to be Assistant Missionary Secretary 

to Dr. Durbin, at the end of nine years in 

this Faculty; nor did the service he ren- 

39 



THE GREAT FIVE 

dered in that office afterward as Secretary, 
and then as Bishop, diminish his useful- 
ness. 

(2) President Thomson was called out 
to the editorial chair of the Christian Ad- 
vocate at the end of fourteen years. Some- 
body blundered. It was a step downward 
from the highest throne of power to sit 
on a tripod. He filled the place well, and 
was then, at the end of four years, elected 
Bishop, a position for which he was less 
qualified than that of College President. 
Bishops deal in patronage and appoint- 
ments; College Presidents grow men, and 
eclipse in the grandeur of their position 
all other men, unless it be ministers of the 
gospel, and yet they also cause the preacher 
to enter his work equipped. It may have 
been a mistake when Dr. Broadus, of the 
Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, 
the mightiest in the South, said to me, '*I 
covet your privilege of preaching the gos- 
pel to a congregation." It may also have 
40 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

been a bright reminiscence that led Pro- 
fessor McCabe to wish he might have re- 
mained in the pastorate in which he spent 
one year amid the Hocking Hills. 

(3) He had what seems to us a far 
greater career building here for fifty-two 
years, while Merrick, including his Emeri- 
tus Professorship, spent here forty-nine 
years, and Williams rounded out fifty- 
seven. We can recall no similar average 
length of term. 

These men were allowed to build on 
their own foundation, and continued the 
structure into durable and magnificent pro- 
portions. 

7. The Five constituted a unit only em- 
phasized by their differences, both in their 
position and attitude toward matters the- 
oretical and practical. 

(i) For illustration: Harris, when 
Bishop, objected to my having used the Re- 
vised Version for morning prayer at a Con- 
ference session. Williams taught us Greek 
41 



THE GREAT FIVE 

and some Hebrew in exact style. He 
translated the Psalms for Sunday-school 
use, and his translation of the Epistle to 
the Romans is so thoroughly modern and 
accurate as to have entitled him to mem- 
bership in the Revision Committee, which, 
but for his modesty, might have been as- 
signed him. Harris, in his objection to 
use of the Revision, under the circum- 
stances, was correct. Williams, in his ac- 
curate style for the puposes intended, was 
also correct ; hence harmony. 

(2) Professor Merrick in his classes 
on Political Economy advocated free-trade 
doctrine. Being absent for a day. Profes- 
sor McCabe heard his class, and with jocu- 
larity announced, ''Make hay while the sun 
shines. We will turn over in the text to 
the subject of tariff." He was an earnest 
advocate of protection. Fortunate for us 
to have had both sides presented during 
our days of education. 

(3) After leaving the University, I in- 

42 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

quired of Professor Merrick for the best 
helps in the study of the character of 
Christ. He advised to let other helps go 
and give almost exclusive attention to the 
four Gospels. I carried the same question 
to Professor Williams. 'That," said he, 
"is bad advice; get Edersheim and study 
it;" remarking casually that Canon Farrar 
had written an eloquent Life of Christ. 
These individualities were aids to the un- 
broken harmony that reigned throughout 
their history. 

8. Usually professors are longer lived 
professionally than presidents. These are 
exposed to more artillery practice, yet men 
are found willing to take the risks of their 
position. 

(i) Long-lived Faculties seem neces- 
sary to the growth of student groups, like 
the great Edinburgh Five made up of 
Drummond, John Watson, Ross, Stalker, 
and George Adam Smith. 

(2) Out of Harvard came, near the 
43 



THE GREAT FIVE 

same time, Emerson, Holmes, and Tho- 
reau. From Bowdoin came Longfellow 
and Hawthorne. The latter seems to me 
the finest modern writer of English. 

(3) Where are the groups of great 
authors, orators, statesmen, and divines 
from Alma Mater? I remind me that 
this is not roll-call. For the present, pass 
it on to Middletown Wesleyan. 



44 



II. 

t 

Possibly It may assist our composite 
picture to look at some of the five for a lit- 
tle while individually. 

I. Notice some of the personal qualities 
of the man who staid the shortest time, 
Professor Harris. May I be somewhat 
personal and not egotistic? My first im- 
pression of him had an awakening effect. 
Possibly I was shy as I entered his recita- 
tion-room to find him there alone. With 
that leonine look of his he fairly demanded, 
*'What do you want, sir?" There was an 
instinctive response Intended to be self- 
respecting: *'I came to find out my work 
in your department." With an immediate 
change into the kindliest manner, I had 
my worlc and admired the man. 
45 



THE GREAT FIVE 

As before mentioned, he saw the amus- 
ing side of things. ( i ) Looking over the 
bulletin board at the opening of the term 
for his class hours, he noticed the hour of 
prayer. There was no irreverence for him 
to say, 'T don't take prayers this term." 

(2) When in Palestine on an Episco- 
pal tour, the little company in the tent were 
singing hymns. Just outside, one of the 
donkeys broke in on the harmony with loud 
braying. The Arab driver remarked, 
"You sing one tune he think he know." 
The humor of the situation furnished the 
Bishop many a hearty laugh. 

Of course, he had the other quality of 
tenderness. Returning from the railway 
station after Commencement, I heard him 
say, "I always feel like crying when this 
hour of separation comes to us yearly." 
As a fellow guest with him in Albion, 
Michigan, he was induced to repeat some 
poetry written by Bishop Thomson's inti- 
46 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

mate friend, Otway Curry, one stanza run- 
ning thus : 

** 'T is sweet to think when struggling 

The goal of life to win, 
That just before the shores of Time, 

The better days begin. 
When through the nameless ages 

I cast my longing eyes, 
Before me, like a boundless sea, 

The great hereafter lies.*' 

He was also induced to repeat from T. 
Buchanan Read: 

**I stood by the open casement 
And looked upon the night, 
And saw the grand procession 
Pass slowly out of sight/* 

Closing with — 

"0, may I long remember 
The palest fainting one 
May, to diviner vision, be 
A bright and blazing sun.*' 

He then said, merrily, ''Do n't ask for 
any more poetry; that's all I know." 

Without reflecting upon any man living 
or dead, an incident may bring out one of 
the most admirable of human qualities. 
47 



THE GREAT FIVE 

During a political campaign he got into a 
heated discussion on the streets of Delaware 
with a citizen of high rank. Unfortunately 
some statement was replied to by the other 
man's fist. Instead of continuing or re- 
senting the insult, Professor Harris turned 
and walked away. Knowing as we did 
that he was able to have wiped the earth 
with his antagonist, and that his impetu- 
osity would naturally have inclined him to 
do it, the higher quality that gave him self- 
command appealed to us with the greatest 
possible emphasis, and furnished a practi- 
cal exegesis of the command ''to turn the 
other also.'' 

He not only spoke, but wrote most vig- 
orously for the abolition of human slav- 
ery. It amused him very much to be a 
guest at the same home with a Southern 
brother who owned slaves. Professor 
Harris, having a very heavy, dark beard, 
shaved every day, including Sunday. At 
this the slaveholding sinner was greatly 
48 



: OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

shocked, which was heartily, and in a jocu- 
lar way, reciprocated by the Professor. 
He was thoroughly informed on missionary 
work and a capable Secretary; was also 
Secretary of the General Conference for 
four sessions till elected Bishop. He was 
an ecclesiastical lawyer, and left two books 
of great value: one, '^Legal Powers of the 
General Conference;" the other, ''Henry 
and Harris on Ecclesiastical Law." 

2. Professor Merrick was of different 
temperament. One would not have thought 
it from outward appearances, but there was 
a time, when his sky was so overclouded 
with darkness, that he felt for a time un- 
certain of the divine existence. This he at- 
tributed In part to his lectureship in Star- 
ling Medical College, but the study of na- 
ture and reasonablenes helped him out. 
''I am sure," said he, "of things invisible; 
as, for example, electricity; but I only 
know It by phenomena; and are not the 

phenomena of God overwhelming?" So 
4 49 



THE GREAT FIVE 

by obedience, he came out into great light. 
At a later time he suffered unspeakable 
physical agony. It invaded his whole soul ; 
like a martyr on the rack, he endured to 
the last, and again found great deliverance. 
He persistently declined the honorary 
D. D. He insisted on our going deeper 
than text-book for truth. **Is it true?" he 
would demand. 

He was so gentle that, rather than de- 
stroy a mosquito, he would lift the window 
and set it free. His poultry would gather 
about him, each one seeming to know its 
own name. Faith Chapel, Delaware, long 
known as the ''Barefoot Church," was his 
special ward. While he fought the saloon 
relentlessly, he came into personal acquaint- 
ance with the saloon-keeper in the kind- 
liest manner. During the Civil War, the 
Rev. Mr. Given was pastor of St. Paul's 
Church, Delaware. He was one of the 
most charming and scholarly of ministers; 
had been a teacher in the South. His sym- 
50 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

pathies were Southern. He spoke out too 
publicly. A mob was brewing; a rope 
was found hung on the parsonage door- 
knob one morning. Professor Merrick, 
the Massachusetts-born Abolitionist, sup- 
pressed the mob. When the first Atlantic 
cable was laid, Professor Merrick sum- 
moned us to the campus at night; amid 
speeches and cheers he declared he felt like 
an electric battery. A sermon by him on 
the text "All guilty before God,'' re- 
minded one of Jonathan Edwards in his 
*'The sinner in the hands of an angry 
God." At an altar exercise in St. Paul's 
Church he went to some students who were 
working up an agony and quietly said, 'Xet 
all things be done decently and in order." 
It was a timely interference. One even- 
ing, at the beginning of the term, he dis- 
missed chapel service in a startling man- 
ner, requesting only those who were by ex- 
perience Christians to remain behind; 
those who went out looked as if con- 
51 



THE GREAT FIVE 

science-smitten; those who staid felt the 
burden he had laid upon them in behalf of 
the others. Later in life, during my pas- 
torate at St. Paul's, he spoke at a prayer- 
meeting, saying, ''In my Father's house are 
many mansions; my wife has gone before; 
I shall follow;" and turning, invited me to 
call and see them in their mansion. (I am 
reminded that this is the night of Passion 
Week when Jesus spoke of the mansions. ) 
As to any literature, he was a frequent con- 
tributor to the religious press, especially 
in his later days when leisure had come. 
But he is speaking through the Merrick. 
Lectures annually. By his endowment yon- 
der beautiful dell has become vocal for all 
times. 

3. Much must be omitted concerning 
Professor McCabe. In his jollity he would 
say, ''Come up, Professor Harris, and let 
us exchange lies." Having once heard 
him preach on the text "If any man love 
not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be ana- 
52 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

thema marantha/' his scholarliness and im- 
petuous persuasiveness could never be 
doubted. In a love-feast at William Street 
Church he spoke of the name *^Jesus/' de- 
claring that he could hang his eternal hopes 
on each several letter in that sacred name. 
When he and Charles, his nephew, knelt, 
one on each side of a penitent student and 
sang together, ^^Show pity, Lord; O Lord, 
forgive," he never seemed so great in any 
other attitude. 

Having been myself sadly afflicted in 
youth by the doctrine of fatalistic Calvin- 
ism, I was prepared to appreciate his mas- 
terly treatment of divine foreknowledge 
and divine nescience. He made that dis- 
cussion more of a past issue in theology 
than ever. It still finds its home mainly 
in the realm of fiction. In addition to 
these books, he also wrote a small volume, 
"Light on the Pathway of Holiness," more 
stimulating than analytical. 

4* Williams outlasted them all. He re- 
53 



THE GREAT FIVE 

minds one of Socrates as well as of Arnold 
of Rugby. Out of admiration he was 
dubbed *'01d Syntax." Here, again, per- 
sonal touch may illustrate. When first I 
entered his class in Greek and asked a ques- 
tion, he sent it back to me with a whizz. 
That did its work. I was aroused, and 
with something of firmness told him *'I 
was asking for information." With great 
blandness, he smiled and led me out of 
perplexity. Here was revealed the So- 
cratic method, which made him an almost 
matchless teacher. Jesus in that method 
surpasses Socrates. No wonder teachers' 
institutes kept Williams busy in the vaca- 
tion time. He taught them how to teach. 
His volume '^English Grammar," thin al- 
most as a knife-blade, is clear as light. I 
have spoken of his Commentary on Ro- 
mans. Whoever understands that Epistle 
has the key to the Bible. Williams makes 
clear the meaning of Foreordination and 
Election in such a way that McCabe relied 
54 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

upon him for the expository part of his 
own great work on Fatalism. 

He was something of a financier, and 
proved a safe treasurer of the University 
for thirty-four years. Professor Merrick 
served as auditor for forty-one years. 
Williams was led into financial ventures in 
a Chicago Fire Insurance Company. By 
reason of the great fire, it proved ruinous. 
Williams was not the man to take advan- 
tage of the bankrupt law. Moral honesty 
stood with him far above legal righteous- 
ness. Had there been need of martyrs 
in their days, I know not one of that Fac- 
ulty who would have shrunk. 

It was so characteristic of his sincerity 
and simplicity that I mention a meeting 
during his later life between him and Doc- 
tor Rogers, the Assyriologist. It occurred 
during the Conference session at Kenton, 
Ohio, where we were guests. Williams, 
the great scholar, much the senior of 
Rogers, plied him with questions with such 
55 



THE GREAT FIVE 

warmth and intelligence as to draw forth 
in short time enough for a volume. The 
manner, charmingly boyish, was penetrat- 
ing as that of a seer. 

His religious life was less demonstrative 
than that of the other members of the Fac- 
ulty; in fact, he was seldom found at the 
weekly prayer-meeting. Possibly he dis- 
liked the religious gush of many a raw 
student. In the prayer-meeting, one is 
greatly tried by repetitiousness and un- 
meaning phrasing, mannerisms serving as 
grave-clothes for the dead. Were these 
cut out of many a prayer, little would be 
left but the Amen. It is a mistake to keep 
away from prayer-meeting even thus de- 
spoiled of freshness. It were better to im- 
prove it. Professor Williams was so ac- 
curate, refined, and honest as to be highly 
sensitive to such irreverence. Prayer- 
meeting was less attractive, therefore, to 
him than to most true Christians. It fell 
to him one year to make the leading ad- 
56 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

dress at the opening of the Week of 
Prayer. It was a great revelation he gave 
from his own experience, and was attended 
by clear argument and impassioned appeal 
for immediate surrender. 

He and QEdipus were akin. Let me 
quote from *Trometheus" by Percival as 
our tribute to Williams: 

**Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are 
frail ; 

Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay ; 
Though darkened in this poor life by a veil 

Of suffering dying matter, we shall play 
In truth's eternal sunbeams ; on the way 

To heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll. 
The temple of the Power whom all obey : 

That is the mark we tend to, for the soul 

Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.' 

5. In attempting a definite description 
of President Thomson, I must again ask 
pardon for using the personal method. 
An itinerant preacher came to our little 
country church; I can not recall his text, 
subject, or sermon. He a^nnounced schol- 
arships for sale on the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
57 



THE GREAT FIVE 

vcrsity; that answered a vague wish cher- 
ished from boyhood. My elder brother 
Bradford and I, each invested. My schol- 
arship called for eight years' instruction 
for thirty dollars. Ever since recruits 
have been coming from that district among 
the hills. Afterward, while a boy teacher 
earning funds to go to college, Thomson's 
Inaugural Address came to me in pamphlet 
form. It stirred the blood. One passage 
in it describing the Widow's Son on Com- 
mencement Day, broke over me like a 
storm. When afterward I entered his 
office he charmed me by his manner. * Will 
you matriculate?" said he. That was a 
new word, but I was sure it did not mean 
inoculate. The deft and gentle manner 
with which he presented the book of regis- 
tration drew me to him. Afterward I felt 
free to seek his advice privately on the 
great problems of life, among them the 
acceptance of a high-grade appointment to 
supply a church during my last collegiate 
58 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

year. He persuaded me not to do it. 
Then the question of a theological school ; 
and last, but not least, the problem of 
matrimony. 

The first lecture which I heard from 
him after entering college reminded me of 
the sweep of a mighty eagle toward the 
sun, producing a conviction that I must see 
to it at once or be left behind and out of 
reach of any fellowship with such great 
souls. 

I have already mentioned how, once, a 
lecture of his on the character of Christ 
had so dazed me that for a moment I had 
to collect myself to find the way to the 
door. Some of the most careless and ir- 
religious of the young men I have heard 
in after years quoting from his lectures. 
There was one such story about a father 
whose boy had been stolen by gypsies. 
After long search he overtook the thief, 
seized him, and lifted him from the earth, 
brought him down; lifted him again and 
59 



THE GREAT FIVE 

brought him down ; lifted him a third time 
and brought him down dead. I heard the 
late Colonel Watson quote this. I have 
heard bishops and distinguished preachers 
recite long passages from his published ad- 
dresses, forgetting to give credit. Take a 
page of his writing, count the monosylla- 
bles, and I know of none who excel him in 
that excellent source of lucidity. There 
was in him a poetic vein which saturated 
his thought and diction. During a serious 
illness it was my privilege, among other 
students, to be a night-watch by his sick- 
bed. A volume of Robert Burns was at 
hand. I read and never forgot the quat- 
rain : 

** Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, 
And fondly broods with miser care ; 
Time but the impression deeper makes 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

It was during that illness he had a 
dream. An angel was villifying the human 
family for its meanness. Thomson replied, 
60 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

in poetic measure, and could remember on 
waking one stanza, which I recall : 

** I, too, am angel made, 
And round my head a sphere is laid 
Which is not less than Heaven.'* 

His volumes of essays, lectures, sermons, 
and letters have not been surpassed in style 
or scope by more recent floods of litera- 
ture; and there is a flood of great books. 
One has to acquire the mastery of the read- 
ing art to keep in touch and get its value. 

During the days of Thomson here, and 
for some years afterward, his volumes 
were oftenest rebound of any in the library, 
so great was their use. In the recitation- 
room he would allow us to get swamped 
reciting Butler's ^'Analogy." In his Sun- 
day lectures it was often ** Butler Im- 
proved" and made as beautiful as a poem. 
The two volumes containing his observa- 
tions during his voyage round the world 
are astonishing for their clear description 
of scenery and their forecast of the destiny 
61 



THE GREAT FIVE 

of Asia and Europe. Within ten years' 
time his prophecies were fulfilled, especially 
in the wars and readjustments of the map 
of Europe. His lecture on the Taj-Mahal 
is finer than that finest structure in India. 

He was a man of sorrows, and so were 
all in that Faculty. Twice it was my mel- 
ancholy privilege to be a pall-bearer for the 
family. Once as a student, when four of 
us sat in St. Paul's Church and heard Dr. 
Gurley preach, with his Irish tenderness 
and eloquence, over the dead body of a 
deeply mourned little girl. He quoted 
with great aptness those lines of Otway 
Curry I have already mentioned, as re- 
peated by Bishop Harris. 

When editor of the New York Chris- 
Han Advocate it was his sad experience 
to bury his first wife, Maria Louisa, daugh- 
ter of Governor Mordecai Hartley. By the 
side of her coffin, Dr. Newman, afterwards 
Bishop, received her son into the Church. 
62 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

The body was taken to Oakwood Ceme- 
tery, in Delaware. 

When as Bishop he went round the 
world and reached Foochow, he thus de- 
scribes an experience: 

*'Weary, wan, and ghostlike, twenty 
thousand miles and more from home, the 
sight of an American, a brother, a minister, 
was almost too much for me. I was at 
home. Here was Brother Maclay, as kind 
as a natural brother could be, and Mrs. 
Maclay, as considerate as a sister or a 
mother; here was a fireside where the Bible 
was read, and happy Christian children 
joined in the songs of Zion. It was an 
overcoming joy, and the silent tears stole 
down my wan cheeks as I sat back in my 
chair and leaned my head against the wall." 

When he left home for the last time, 

unexpectedly he returned to his family in 

Evanston, making a long journey, as he 

said, **for a better good-bye." His second 

63 



THE GREAT FIVE 

wife, the elegant Annie E. Howe, was de- 
lighted to receive it. He then went on his 
way to preside at the session of the Newark 
Conference. He reached Wheeling, was 
taken ill of typhoid-pneumonia, and died 
in a hotel. He really had never recovered 
from the effects of his Oriental journey. 
He was a passenger on a vessel saturated 
with the fumes of a cargo of opium. The 
pallor of the poison never left his face, 
nor did his appetite ever recover its former 
vigor. He once said to me, *T thought 
that when on the Red Sea I should join 
Pharaoh and his hosts at the bottom." 
When the body was being brought to Del- 
aware It was my privilege to carry his 
empty hat across the railway station at Co- 
lumbus. There seemed a great vacuum 
in the little space once filled by that splen- 
did head. Later on I became a second time 
pall-bearer for the family, and helped 
carry him to yonder Oakwood Cemetery, 
where now sleep all the Faculty, except 
64 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

Harris. For the sake of completeness, 
would that he might also there await the 
resurrection ! 

It was my privilege after his departure 
to spend a night in the room in the Grant 
House, Wheeling, where Bishop Thomson 
died. There was the Bible on the mantel, 
and I read again the chapter from which 
he had preached on the ^'Humiliation and 
Exaltation of Christ." I spent a wakeful 
night, and rededicated myself, by that bed- 
side on which he died, to the service of 
Him whom he had so marvelously exalted 
by his preaching. 

It was my privilege to nominate for 
Visitor and Examiner of the University, 
in behalf of the Alumni, his daughter Eliza 
Thomson Powell, as a recognition of her 
fitness for the responsibility. Later expe- 
rience has taught me that there is need of 
women trustees for co-educational univer- 
sities. 

Thomson's conscientiousness was illus- 
5 65 



THE GREAT FIVE 

trated in the strict observance of the Sab- 
bath. Who knows but that his son's de- 
votion to this great, vital subject sprang 
from the father's example? When that 
father was sent abroad by the trustees to 
purchase books for the library, he became 
much attached to a fellow-traveler. In 
order to visit Italy and make the outgoing 
steamer, it was necessary to travel on Sun- 
day. Very reluctantly, Thomson gave up 
the coveted journey. His companion went 
down on the fated ship with all on board. 
Professor McCabe startled us in a Sunday 
afternoon lecture ere Thomson's return, by 
narrating the incident without name, and 
then declaring that, but for his keeping the 
law, the Ohio Wesleyan would to-day be 
in mourning for its drowned President. 

When smitten with his fatal illness at 
Wheeling, his family were in Evanston. 
He withheld the telegram announcing his 
approaching death rather than have his 
wife travel on Sunday to reach him. The) 
66 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

never met again on earth alive, but had 
enjoyed ''the better good-bye." 

Kindred to this was his loyalty to his 
convictions in civic matters. Our Literary 
Society had engaged the editor of the Ohio 
Statesman to deliver a Commencement ora- 
tion. Meantime that paper had savagely 
attacked a lecture of President Thomson 
i on 'Tulpit and Politics." The Society 
■ would not brook the discourtesy, and can- 
celed the engagement with the editor of 
the newspaper. Being Corresponding 
Secretary of the Society, I wrote the letter 
of recall with keen relish. 

On another occasion, our President said, 

in a lecture, ''I will not obey the Fugitive 

Slave Law, but will suffer its extremest pen- 

ilty in case of need." We knew that he 

vould do so in the same temper as the three 

Lebrew children risked the fiery furnace, 

aying, ''We are not careful to answer thee, 

) king!" 

His religion saturated his whole being. 

67 



THE GREAT FIVE 

As a youth he became skeptical. ''A dis- 
ease," said Professor Merrick to our class 
in Evidences, **as sure to thinking youth 
as are the mumps and measles to children." 
Young Thomson gathered a club to dis- 
prove the Bible. Being open-minded, he 
was convinced of its truth. A sermon at 
a camp-meeting, preached by Russel Big- 
elow, whom Thomson afterwards called 
'*the Henry Clay of the Western pulpit," 
brought him to repentance. Afterward in 
his office he saw a young friend killed 
while moving a house. Thomson fell upon 
his knees in self-consecration. 

His chapel prayers were never two alike. 
Fresh as the morning, they generally 
sprang from the lesson in the Bible, which 
he read in course from day to day. 

He had his oddities; he was very self- 
forgetful. It was said he would bid good- 
morning to the cow on the street; put his 
hat under his arm and his book on his head 
when leaving the recitation-room. At the 
68 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

close of a sermon he failed to recognize 
his own wife. When a Bishop, he was our 
guest in Portsmouth, Ohio. It was in the 
early autumn. Before going to the church 
he put on warmer stockings. On coming 
down stairs his wife discovered one foot 
had been neglected. The low-cut shoe had 
a naked foot in it. We should have had 
our barefoot angel in the pulpit during 
that great Centennial Sermon, but for the 
vigilance of his wife. I have seen him lose 
his ticket while traveling on the train. 

In spite of this abstraction and oblivious- 
ness, It was dangerous to trifle with him. 
A young fellow had committed a gross mis- 
demeanor. He was called forward in 
chapel, the President saying, *'It becomes 
my painful duty to administer a public re- 
proof." *'I will not receive it," said the 
youngster, and, whirling, marched for the 
door. '^You have received it," replied the 
President. A thunder of applause in ap- 
proval followed the youngster out. The 
69 



THE GREAT FIVE 

next day a letter written by the student 
was read in chapel, most humbly apolo- 
gizing. 

A party of young men went off for a 
night of it in an omnibus. Their conduct 
was peculiar here ; for, returning home late 
in the night, they were nearly all drunk. 
Somehow, Thomson knew of it, and they 
were aware that he did; as one of them 
afterwards told me, he hung his silence 
above them like a thunder-cloud, and they 
felt it was the severest punishment he 
could have administered. 

In his morning talks he would touch 
upon matters, the mention of which would 
have been vulgar in ordinary men. His 
treatment was pure as the snow, and killed 
off the microbe of vulgarity. On one such 
occasion he swept his eagle eye around, 
saying, **I could point you out every man 
who is guilty." Insisting on personal neat- 
ness, he declared, *^Some of you look as 
though your hair had not been combed 
70 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

since the Revolutionary War." Warning 
us against the wiles of Cupid, ''Beware," 
said he; ''for often the Freshman's beloved 
IS the Senior's despised." Speaking on our 
diet, he told of the man who complained 
to the doctor of sleeplessness and dreaming 
frequently of seeing his father. "What 
do you eat before retiring?" "O, nothing 
much; half a mince-pie." "Eat the other 
half and you will see your grandfather." 
An invalid was asked to take exercise: 
^'Take a walk." "O, I can not walk." 
"Ride on horseback." "That would kill 
me." "Ride in a buggy." "I could not 
endure It." "How do you exercise?" 
"I do this" — twirling his thumbs round 
each other with folded hands. "What, 
then, do you do when you get tired?" "I 
twirl them in the opposite direction." 

After his Episcopal tour round the 
world, he was presiding in the Chicago 
General Conference. There was a tumul- 
tuous debate. Amid the struggle of the 
71 



THE GREAT FIVE 

giants he lost control. Secretary Harris 
had to coach him. A few days afterward, 
in giving his report of his observations in 
the East, he said, ^'I have ridden on the 
elephant, on the camel, and on the donkey, 
but this General Conference has proven 
the worst saddled beast of any of them 
all." The tumultuous applause indicated 
that the Bishop was again in command. 

In his early ministry he was pastor in 
Detroit. His preaching was attended 
with extraordinary interest; his congrega- 
tion would spontaneously rise to their feet. 
In spite of that, he became greatly discour- 
aged, and, resolved to give up the charge, 
he was on his way to carry out his purpose. 
In the church he overheard the sexton 
praying earnestly for him. As he told us 
of this in chapel, he said, ''I cried within 
myself, 'O my God, shall I retreat with 
Thy servant thus praying for me?' " He 
did not retire. 

When he was dead. Professor Harris 
72 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

declared, ''We ne'er shall see his like 
again." William Morley Punshon, the 
peerless orator of Wesleyan Methodism in 
his day, was in this country at the time of 
Thomson's death and pronounced him ''the 
Chrysostom of the American pulpit." 

How can I better illustrate his past, 
present, and future than by using his own 
language; "Religion leads beyond Philoso- 
phy. The Christian rises side by side with 
the philosopher into the starry heavens. 
They tread foot to foot the Zodiac round. 
Together their souls expand, and, burn, 
and wonder, and adore. And here the 
Christian bows to his learned companion, 
and leaves him in the Milky Way, and 
on his wings of faith ascends the upper 
skies, enters the paradise of God, soars 
through fields of life, and surveys the man- 
sions of the blessed. He wears the crown 
of life, and waves the palm of immortality. 
He mingles with the blood-washed throng, 
and repeats their halleluiahs." 
73 



III. 

I am aware that my picture, both com- 
posite and personal, is meager. Some of 
you knew these men well, and could fur- 
nish many a characteristic fact which I have 
not presented. What fine wives and chil- 
dren and families they had! May their 
kind multiply ! Thank God, they do. 

A college generation ordinarily lasts but 
four years and is gone. '^Dear Old '59" 
is thinning out; not half of us left. The 
great Alumni army is falling out on the 
front line. The second Faculty is follow- 
ing the first very close Into the shadows. 
The third can not tarry long. 

Where Is that great cluster of Five to- 
day? Are they still living? Surely they 
are. They survive In these grounds and 
monumental buildings. They live In this 
large and able Faculty, to which have come 
74 



OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

opportunities such as they never had. They 
live in the men and women graduates that 
are making this world better in every 
country under the sun. 

But is immortality only a matter of per- 
sonal influence transmitted? Is it not 
rather personal, individual immortality? 
Surely Thomson, thou didst describe in ad- 
vance thine own ascension to the upper 
skies. Harris, thou hast surely found the 
**Great Hereafter." Merrick, thou didst 
anticipate so often '*the solemn grandeur 
of a never-ending eternity." McCabe, 
thou hast doubtless joined Jonathan Ed- 
wards ; though so opposed in this life, kin- 
dred souls in that. Williams, last but not 
least among the immortals, thou hast real- 
ized thy comment on Romans, declaring 
''the grandeur of the apostle's theme, and 
the grandeur of the apostle's thoughts, and 
the grandeur of the apostle's style, can not 
be surpassed, if they can be equaled, In all 
the world's literature." This was a pre- 
75 



THE GREAT FIVE 

view which thou hast realized as to the 
declaration, '* I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principal- 
ities, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor powers, nor height, no depth, 
nor any other creature, will be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which 
is in Christ Jesus our Lord/' Hail and 
farewell, and forever hail 1 



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